[ih] First file transfer on ARPANET

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Richard Bennett <richard at bennett.com>

    > Given that the initial focus was remote login

I wasn't there, and I don't offhand recall what I've seen about the timelines
in historical materials I have read, but a word from personal memory about an
analogous situation:

When working on early TCP implementations, on machines which had no
networking software on them at all (as was still common in '78), it was 'far'
easier to bring up some sort of rudimentary file transfer than remote login.
(In fact, TFTP was invented to allow file transfer before we even had TCP
running, and IIRC EFTP was done for similar reasons at PARC - but don't quote
me on that, that's just a dim recollection of something I read a long time
ago.)

Remote login takes a _lot_ more work on the server side (you have to create
pseudo-teletypes, and hook them into the terminal handling code, and in
general, depending on how involved the OS is, it can be a fair amount of work
to handle remote users), whereas for simple file service (i.e. no
login/authentication, just access to whatever's world readable/writeable),
it's a very small amount of code.

So my _guess_ is that while formal plans may have been to work on remote
login, I'll bet whoever was actually writing code did some sort of file
transfer first...


    > From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>

    > I should point out that the ARPANET never did do a remote login
    > protocol.
    > ...
    > The Telnet spec quite specifically says it is a terminal device driver
    > protocol.

You're splitting a rather fine hair (although I concede the accuracy of that
hair): The TELNET protocol may _be_ a terminal device driver protocol, but it
was mostly _used_ for remote login - and the server to which one connected at
port 23 using it was a remote login service...

	Noel